


and now I wait my whole lifetime for you

by Dulcinea



Category: Dragon Ball
Genre: Doctor Who Feels, Doctor Who References, Horror, M/M, Romance, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-17 18:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29475942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dulcinea/pseuds/Dulcinea
Summary: ”There once was a boy, destined to become a king, and he asked his Father,‘How long can a Saiyan live?’”A Doctor Who-inspired story.
Relationships: Son Goku/Vegeta (Dragon Ball)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 32





	and now I wait my whole lifetime for you

**Author's Note:**

> 100% completely based on the Doctor Who episode “Heaven Sent.” If you’ve seen it, you pretty much know the story. It’s one of my favorite episodes of all time. Definitely in my top 3.

A snap of light, and Vegeta wheezed, clawing at his throat for air that wouldn’t come. He coughed again and again, clearing his lungs of the burn inside, his eyes blinking rapidly to remove the burn there too. His arm landed on glass, forehead hitting forearm, as he caught his breath with large, deep inhales and even longer exhales. 

Metal floor. Glass encasing. 

He glanced up. 

Stone walls. Sand across the floor. A console adjacent to his left hip, beyond the glass. 

Vegeta stood up straight, his breath finally evening out.

His gloved hand touched a steel handle. A push down, and a part of the casing swung open, revealing a stone slab to stand onto and more dirty brown sand filling up the room.

Two windows. Nothing outside. Not a sound around. Not even from the dusty console adjacent to the teleported he arrived in.

Vegeta surveyed the whole room. No cameras. No screens. No other people. Just himself, the teleporter and all this sand.

He crouched down to the ground, his fingers running through the sand. Real. Not fake. Not part of his imagination. This was real. Everything was real.

The image of Goku’s limp body in his arms stabbed his chest.

His gloved hand crunched up a large amount of sand.

He rose back to his feet. Rivulets of sand snuck out from the sides of his fist. 

As he unfurled his fingers, Vegeta snarled, “If you think because he’s gone that I am weak, then you know very little about me.” 

The rest of the sand slipped through his fingertips like filthy rivers. 

“And if you are not afraid after doing what you did to him, then you know nothing about me at all.” 

His gloved hand returned into a clenched fist. 

“So for your own sake, know this and know it well.” 

He looked up to the stone sky, knowing they were listening, and he bellowed on top of his lungs: 

“I am Vegeta, prince of all Saiyans. I will get Kakarot back, and I will never, _ever_ stop until I do!”

***

He warned Goku multiple times, warned him that one day, his trusting disposition would come back to bite him. Goku always wrote it off with a smile and a wave. “I’ll be okay if it happens,” he usually said, “I can handle things by myself!” When they started getting closer, especially after spending three years together in the Time Chamber, Goku would sometimes say, “I’ll be fine, I got you and I can do it by myself too!” Then it just became, “I’ll be okay, and if not, I got you, right?” Always said with that big dumb irritating smile on his face. A smile that Vegeta came to appreciate over time. A smile he started to find endearing. 

A smile that he saw mid-spar, just before it disappeared a second later. 

It was a usual spar that day, with fists and with words, performed out in the middle of a nowhere forest on Earth. Vegeta caught Goku off-guard with a badly delivered joke, one that Goku laughed hard over. He powered up an attack to shut Goku up and of course the man easily transmitted away from the blast, giggling up a storm. Vegeta found himself smiling too despite how annoyed he was, and he didn’t mind that. It was comfortable. Nice.

Just the perfect opportunity for them. Because Vegeta knew how to get Goku’s guard down, and in that second of laughter between them, they attacked at the right time.

Every moment of that day etched itself into his memory. Goku’s sharp, surprised gasp. His wide-open stare and pained expression. The way his lips tried to form the letter “V” at the same time one of his hands reached out towards him, the beg and the plea right there in that one motion. Then the glazed over eyes, the lids fluttering shut, and that ki plummeted as fast as Goku’s body did from mid-air right to the Earth.

Vegeta caught him in time before impact. His arms ached from the catch as he lowered Goku down to the ground. His lips frowned, a reprimand ready to be released, and all of the anger inside himself disappeared when he saw the purple dart lodged into the side of Goku’s neck. 

“No.” He shook his head. “No no no oh fuck _no_.” 

The dart disappeared, like Vegeta knew it would. A tranquilizer strong enough to knock out a Saiyan. Vegeta remembered that day well—age 16, with Nappa and Raditz, fighting magic users who gave them enough trouble that they struggled for 6 days to conquer it. But they did conquer it. Few survived, not because of any mercy, but by sheer luck.

He waited for the perpetrator to come out, just like all those years ago. Waited for whoever did this to show its ugly face and turn into dust with one blast. 

Then Goku’s body shimmered from head to toe in a dark purple light. 

Vegeta frowned. “What the…”

The light dissipated—and so did Goku’s body, becoming more and more translucent. 

“NO!” He clung Goku harder to his chest, screaming, “You fucks, not him, me!” His hands started to pass through Goku’s disappearing body. “I’m the one who destroyed your world, not him!”

Too quick. Too fast. 

Vegeta trembled, staring at his empty arms. 

Gone. 

His hands slowly curled into fists.

Goku was gone.

He growled between clenched teeth.

Knocked out and taken away by a mistake from his own past. 

Vegeta came to his feet, yelling around the empty forest, “Listen to me! I know you are still there! Kakarot is an innocent who has done nothing wrong!”

Nothing but silence. 

“Bring him back and take me instead! The Manurans have no qualms with him, only me!”

A gentle breeze. The rustling of branches.

He swallowed his pride, crying out louder than before, “ _Please!_ ”

_How far?_

Vegeta froze. 

The voice in his head snarled, _How far would you go to bring him back?_

Vegeta didn’t hesitate in his answer. “Whatever it takes.”

*** 

What the Manurans lacked in strength, they made up for in magical abilities. Vegeta remembered how groggy he was after the dart hit his neck. Two weeks passed out, leaving Raditz and Nappa alone to take over the planet for Frieza. They won in the end, a win that Frieza found disappointing and annoying, as his ‘little monkeys’ took forever conquering such a simple world. 

The effects of the dart lasted longer than Vegeta wanted, and that all happened when he was younger and not as strong. The chances of Goku waking up sooner were high, to the point where he doubted that Goku needed saving. But Nappa and Raditz’s reports post-conquering gave Vegeta enough of a pause where he memorized their findings. 

That purple dart wasn’t just a tranquilizer. It was a mind control serum. Once inside the circulatory system, a Manuran could force a deep slumber onto an opponent, or make the victim obey their commands as a willing slave, or turn on their own comrades. They could make it last as long as the serum was still there. It was why when Vegeta woke up, they didn’t bother with toying around with these people. They obliterated them as fast as possible, before they could hit anyone else with those darts.

It was why he didn’t bother alerting anyone else about what happened. There was no way he was going to endanger his family or anyone else. The last thing Vegeta needed was another liability or two.

 _He is ours_ , the voice said, _unless you agree to our terms_.

“Name them.”

_Escape the maze created by our ancestors, and he is yours._

“And if I fail?”

_He remains ours. As do you._

“How long do I have?”

The sinister chuckle echoed in his mind. 

_However long it takes to break your soul._

Vegeta gritted his teeth, hissing out his answer: “Done.”

A flash of light, and he was gone.

***

Vegeta wandered the stone hallways, taking in what he could sense. Stone under his gloves. Stone under his boots. The scent of an ocean. Dust and cobwebs and a sharp stinging tang that made his eyes water a little. 

He would’ve flown through these hallways, even jumped outside the window to survey where exactly he was, if he could’ve. No matter how many times he tried, Vegeta’s ki remained suppressed. But the shock and the fear didn’t last. He had enough ki to live and breathe. That was enough to survive. To achieve his goal. 

Another hallway led to nothing but more dust. More sand littering the stone floors here and there. More to stone and nothing else. 

A roar of an ocean wave hitting stone outside. That sharp tangy smell intensified. 

More stone and sand. More hallways leading to more hallways. More nothingness. Endless. 

Vegeta growled. 

Under his breath, he muttered, “Come on, you cowards. Show me what you’ve got.” 

_click_

He froze.

_click_

_click_

The pungent, tangy smell grew, and _grew_. 

_click_

Behind him.

_click_

Slowly, Vegeta turned around. 

His eyes bugged out of their sockets. 

_click_

“No…” 

He took a step backwards, his whole body shivering. 

_click_

_click_

In a quivering whisper, he said, “You can’t be here.” 

_click_

Another step backwards. Sand crunched under his boot. 

That rotten smell.

“You can’t.”

_click_

The putrid smell that haunted him his whole life. 

Vegeta shook his head no.

_click_

“I killed you.”

_click_

Vegeta screamed, “I killed you!” 

_click_

No ki. He had no ki to stop the nightmare of his nightmares. It crawled towards him, one slow step at a time, shrouded in darkness and that foul smell of death he could never erase from his memory. 

It wouldn’t stop. It wouldn’t. It’d chase him at this exact pace, stalking him like a predator in tall grass, savoring each passing second in the wait, the dread of the inevitable. Its clawed, disfigured hands would remain outstretched towards him, festered skin dripping off long mangled limbs, until they finally caught him. Until it finally took away what Vegeta killed from it ages ago. 

Of course a maze would have a monster. Of course.

His feet turned first, then the rest of his body.

He had no choice.

_Run._

*** 

Saiyan strength worked in his favor. He bolted as fast as possible down each hallway, passing through rooms of different sizes and shapes, placing as much distance as possible between himself and the nightmare of his nightmares. It’d find him eventually, but it was still slow. He could read its ki, how the further he ran, the safer he was from the monster. It wouldn’t catch him just yet. 

He stumbled into a room at the end of the last hallway, slamming the wooden door behind him. His body slammed against it, head tilted back, panting for air, sweat rolling down his cheeks and neck. It had to be far away from the monster. This had to be far enough.

Time. Strategy. His bare strength. The only weapons he had here. 

Vegeta stepped away from the door, running a hand over his clammy face. He registered the items in the room—a bed, a clear vase with burnt orange dahlias in them, a mantle, and a thick gold frame of some artwork.

He paused mid-stride when he noticed what was in the picture frame.

_Kakarot._

Dilapidated. Old, as if it had been here for decades already. Paint chips littered the top of the wooden mantle, even some of the stone floor. But he could see that picture so clearly. He knew this image well. 

Kind dark eyes. Sweet smile. A look that spoke of honesty and acceptance and forgiveness of all sins, no matter how brutal they were. Unbridled innocence. Warmth.

_“Vegeta, forgive me!”_

The day against Buu, in Other World.

_“I can’t do it!”_

He closed the gap between himself and the picture frame. 

The look Goku gave him after they had won. 

His gloved fingertips ran along the frame. More paint chips fluttered away from the picture’s corner. 

_Kakarot…_

He closed his eyes. 

_Forgive me._

***

Eighty two minutes. He counted how long it took from where he was on one end of this fortress to the other every time the nightmare came close to touching him. Eighty two minutes to sleep. To eat. To strategize. 

Once, he was cornered against a large glass-stained window, the monster a mere inches from his face, and he acted out of sheer survival, slamming himself backwards, glass cutting his arms and legs, falling and twisting and turning, down to the ocean below. At the last second, he found control of his body and dove in with his arms up over his head, palms side by side, legs together, straight and taut.

The impact blackened his world for a few moments. 

When he came to, he nearly choked on the cold water.

Skulls. 

Piles and piles of skulls, coating this ocean floor. 

Vegeta swam towards the surface then, gasping for air, for solid ground. He found it easily, his gloved hand clenching around the wet sand and brown grass. Despite the cold water and his state of shock, he pulled himself out, dragging his carcass across the shore until his feet no longer touched the waves. 

When he came to his feet, he finally understood where he was exactly, and what this place was too.

A fortress. A castle. Floating in the middle of an ocean. 

Nothing else around. No one else, save himself, and the nightmare of his nightmares.

He entered the castle and found a room with a roaring fireplace, a luxurious chair and dry clothes identical to his own hanging next to the flames, waiting for him. He didn’t question it, putting the new clothes on and laying the old wet ones in their place.

It was in this room he sat on that chair, staring at the flames, questioning himself. His hand cupped his own chin, his elbow resting on to the chair’s wooden arm. A slight reprieve, before he had to start running again.

Vegeta sighed, closing his eyes. 

In his mind, Goku asked him, _What is this place?_

It should’ve annoyed him that after spending however long he had in this hell, he resorted to imagining Kakarot talking to him. But it didn’t. It surprisingly helped.

He answered back, _I don’t fucking know._

Goku snapped, _Think, Vegeta._

_Can’t I just sleep?_

As usual, Goku ignored him, asking, _What can you do to make the creature stop?_

_Don’t you think I would’ve done that by now if I actually knew?_

His lips involuntarily turned into a smirk at Goku’s indignant sigh. _Dammit, Vegeta, you can do this!_ A smirk that turned into a wide grin when Goku yelled, _How are you going to win?!_

A rotten smell stopped Vegeta from answering back.

_click_

“Son of a bitch.” 

He scrambled out of the chair and bolted right out of the room.

*** 

Hours upon hours. Minutes after minutes. Sun rising and setting, light to dark to light again. A yellow sky in the morning, a yellow night in the evening. The only change in this place. The only thing Vegeta had as a marker that time was actually passing. 

He stared at the soup he found in a kitchen in this hell hole of a castle, sitting at the end of an absurdly large wood table. His hand stirred the large spoon in the red liquid, again and again, finding comfort in the motion, in the sounds. 

_It keeps coming, Kakarot._

_Swish swish_ went the liquid.

A rattle of metal spoon against metal bowl.

_Wherever I go, it follows._

He paused. Scooped up a spoonful.

His slurp echoed in the large room. 

_Why? Why is it doing that?_

Kakarot’s voice always soothes his mind. _Not why, Vegeta. What._ What _is it doing as it follows you?_

He gathered another spoonful, slurping it’s lukewarm contents. _It tracks me slowly._ Another spoonful. _It takes its time._ Another. _Like it’s trying to…_

Vegeta gasped. 

The spoon slipped out of his grip.

A loud boom of metal hitting metal. 

_Scare me._

That smell.

The putrid, vile smell.

_click_

He jerked up out of his chair, pushing away from the table. 

_This isn’t a maze._ Vegeta stormed out of the room, heading for the other end of the castle, as usual. _It’s a fucking puzzle box meant to scare me to death._

The faster he ran, the less intense the smell was. The further he ran, the quieter the clicks were. 

Each inhale burned his lungs. Each exhale ripped his dry, raw throat. 

_But why?_

Ocean outside. Endless horizon. 

_What do they want me to do?_

Yellow daylight. Yellow night sky. 

_How the fuck do I escape?_

Skulls upon skulls and old paint chips and dirty sand. 

_How do I save you?_

Vegeta _ran_. 

***

Outside again. The same sky with the same sand and the same yellow-blue ocean. Vegeta stared out at sea, listening to the waves, for any other sound—a bird’s caw, a whale or dolphin breaking the surface. Something. 

When the usual nothing came, Vegeta turned away, dragging the shovel behind him. 

He had seen that same shovel multiple times in his runs. It proved to be a good weapon against the nightmare. It didn’t damage the creature, but a hit to the head stopped it for a moment, and a moment was all Vegeta needed to escape and earn another eighty-two minutes of rest. 

Wandering the shore became his only moment of leisure and peace. A place where he could recover, reminisce and re-strategize, before the nightmare arrived. He found the shovel in this exact place, next to a spot of fresh dirt forming a large square. A possible grave without a gravestone. 

What laid beneath was not something he ever wanted to find out. But Kakarot showed up then, saying, _Someone’s giving you a hint._

_Preposterous._

_It can’t be a coincidence._ Kakarot sounded so sure of himself. _You see it every time. It can’t be._

He gave into the needling though. As if he had anything else better to do in this place. 

Vegeta walked past the square plot on the beach, now covered in dirt. As if Vegeta never unearthed what laid beneath. A reset without his say so, just like the rest of this place. Automated room service, performed in every room Vegeta ever entered and used. Constantly recycling. 

He didn’t need to unearth what laid beneath though. The words he found there, engraved in a slab of hard stone—his memory branded every letter to his psyche. So he’d never, ever forget. 

_I AM IN 16_

Vegeta turned away from the untouched patch of dirt, back to the castle of hell.

*** 

Every room had a number and no way to maintain a system. They were jumbled. 12 next to 81. 3 next to 48. No rhythm. No pattern. So he had to write it all down, draw a map of the castle, label each room accordingly, all the while fighting off the nightmare of his nightmares with a shovel and his wits and his speed and nothing else. 

It was only a matter of time though when none of his weapons would prove useful. 

“SHIT!”

A trip. A measly trip mid-run, from exhaustion or stupidity or both, and the shovel tumbled from his grasp, skidding down the hallway, past the nightmare trudging its way closer to him. 

Vegeta sat upright, hands behind him, glaring up at the monster. He pushed up to his feet—

“Ahh!” 

—and collapsed right back down. 

Ankle twisted. Blood seeped on the outside foot. Maybe broken instead. 

_click_

“Fuck!” 

_click_

His palms pushed against the stone floor, sand digging under his nails. He hissed through his teeth, willing his arms to move faster, to get himself further away, to find a handle to grab so he could pull himself to his feet and hop his way down the hall, away from the monster. It’d lessen his time for recovery, but time was all he had, time was everything in this place, time to eat, to sleep, to think, to find a way out, to get Goku back— 

_click_

But it kept coming.

_click_

He wasn’t moving fast enough. 

_click_

He couldn’t get away far enough.

_click_

The darkness and the eyes and the outstretched slimey arms with the putrid smell that haunted him since childhood was right there. 

_click_

His vision blurred. 

“No…”

_click_

He stopped scooting backwards, collapsing onto his elbows. 

_click_

The nightmare of his nightmares. Only a few inches away. 

_click_

“Please…” 

_click_

“I can’t fail now.”

_click_

“I can’t.”

The hands almost touched his cheeks—

Vegeta snapped his eyes shut, crying out, “ _I can’t lose him!_ ”

Scorching heat against his skin. Rotten smell filling his nose. 

The clicks stopped. 

Fast heartbeat in his chest. Blood rushing in his head. His own heavy breathing, echoing in the hallway. The faint sound of ocean waves outside. 

And that was it. 

Vegeta slowly opened his eyes. 

The nightmare stood there before him, a mere inch from touching his face, frozen in place. 

His chest heaved from every labored breath he took. The nightmare didn’t flinch whatsoever. It stayed frozen. Remained that way even as Vegeta pushed himself along the stone floor, creating needed distance. 

It stopped. It actually stopped. 

_Why did it stop?_

Vegeta scooted himself across the floor, his palms hurting, his arms aching, until his back hit a wooden door. He kept his gaze on the monster as he reached up with one hand for the knob and pulled himself up to a standing position. 

Not once did the nightmare move, even as Vegeta hobbled away on one leg. 

***

The game started again eighty two minutes later, as usual. It was enough time for Vegeta to find bandages, clean the superficial wound and set the ankle in place. If it was broken, it was a hairline fracture, and it would heal sooner than a full break would. But it was enough of a setback to worry Vegeta. One more stupid move like that, either to the same ankle or somewhere else, and he’d be done for.

Except he had a weapon now. One that was much more effective than the shovel, easier to carry around, and way more devastating to deliver—but not for the monster. 

Confessing truths he never told a soul wounded himself as much as Frieza’s fatal blast to his heart did. 

_“I always wanted my father’s approval! It meant the most to me, even though I meant nothing to him!”_

_“I enjoy having an excuse to be my worst self! I bask in the opportunity!”_

_“I never told my mother I loved her and it haunts me to this day!”_

_“I killed one of my best friends out of sport and ENJOYED it!”_

_“I still dream of every child I ever killed, and I hate that I do!”_

Every time, the monster stopped. Every time, it gave Vegeta the chance to escape. 

Every time, something inside Vegeta died. 

The monster, this nightmare, this place—saying the truth wasn’t enough for it. When he told the truth, the monster kept coming. It was confessions that made the monster stop. Truths he never told a soul before. Truths he swore he would never tell for anything or anyone. 

Vegeta stared at the dilapidated portrait of Goku.

He touched the edge of the painting with his gloved thumb. 

His lips curved up into a tiny, rueful smile.

_Damn you, Kakarot._

***

Always coming. Always closer. A countdown that never stopped, and he needed to leave before that countdown hit zero. Finding the room was the way out. It had to be. Whoever wrote that message in the dirt—the monster, the vengeful Manurans, Goku himself—left it for him to capitalize on. 

The map he made of the entire fortress filled up with numbers. 102. 63. 10. 79. Getting closer to the number he needed to find—to the end of this game. Days passed on. Nights too. All this time that he didn’t need to count, because it was still time he needed. Valuable time. 

It was on one of his chases that Vegeta re-entered the room he first arrived in. The glass door of the teleporter was closed again. No footsteps in the sand. Another room service cleaning.

He glanced around, marking the number of this room down on his map. Another look over the room, the teleporter, the console—

Vegeta froze. 

A skull on the ground. Hidden behind the console. 

A dirty skull with blue power cables attached to either side of the temple. 

He crouched down to the ground, picking up the skull in his hands. A glint of something caught his attention, and he looked up to find it.

A sharp piece of glass against a stone wall. Scratches along that wall—

Vegeta gasped.

—that made up a _number_ , in a language he hadn’t seen in decades. His native language. The Saiyan language.

260.

Vegeta leaned in, tracing his gloved fingers over each number. 

He lingered in the room a bit longer, staring at the number, at the wired skull on his lap. Then the familiar, wretched smell creeped its way into his senses, and he left before the stench grew any further.

The number stuck with him long after he marked the room down on the map. It haunted his mind, all the way into the evening. He stared up at the millions of stars from the top of one of the castle’s towers, the black sky tinted yellow like the moon. 

Was that the number of people who came before him to this place and didn’t survive? The number of skulls inside the ocean below? The number of _days_ someone spent here until they died?

Vegeta rubbed his throat. 

… the years a Saiyan supposedly survived in this hell hole?

How many Saiyans had these Manurans captured in the past? How many had they tortured like himself?

He tilted his head down, his gloved hand sliding to the back of his neck to rub the skin there. 

Vegeta squeezed his neck hard. Sighed. 

_How long until I can save you, Kakarot?_

The Manuran’s laughter resonated in his mind. _However long it takes to break your soul_ , they said.

Vegeta smirked, turning away from the world above him. 

_Fine by me. I don’t have a soul anymore._

***

He found room 16 not too long after. The game neared its end and in good time. There were no more confessions left for him to utilize. The monster had them all now. All except for one. 

Pushing open the door, he found a dark, long corridor, leading out to a light at the end. His steps ricocheted all around, similar in sound to the nightmare that haunted him for this long. 

The more he walked, the more the light intensified. The closer he came to the light, the warmer he felt. Warmest he had felt in a long time. 

Then the corridor ended, opening up to a room composed of pure, pitch black. All except for the glowing wall before him. 

The closer he came to it, the more details he found. Crystal white. Jagged edges. Sharp lines. A material he saw before. Something from Bulma’s closet. 

He touched one of the edges. 

A prick of bright red bloomed over his gloved index finger. 

Vegeta hissed, flinging his hand away. 

“Diamonds.” 

This would’ve been nothing to him, if he actually had his ki. He would’ve blasted a hole easily in it and walked through to the other side.

His hands twisted up into fists. 

So close. This damn close.

All this work. All this effort and exhaustion and _time—_

Vegeta gasped. 

Time.

His hands unfurled and shook. 

All this… time.

_Oh gods._

He stepped away from the wall. His vision trembled. His whole body trembled. The floor felt uneven, the room felt wrong, the air felt thick and _wrong_ and everything was _wrong—_

Vegeta shook his head no.

_It’s not… it can’t..._

His vision blurred. 

The weight of remembrance brought him to his knees. 

It was always then. Always at this point. Exactly here, in front of the wall, on his knees, staring at the way out, the warm light and the dark room and the pain of it all, the years upon years upon _years_ compounding together, crushing his soul into pieces—just like the Manuran said would happen. 

That putrid smell returned, right on time. As usual.

_click_

He gasped for air that couldn’t come. 

_click_

Everything turned cold. 

_click_

Vegeta closed his eyes and bowed his head. 

_I can’t keep doing this, Kakarot._

Darkness behind his lids. Darkness around him.

A darkness he’d never escape.

_click_

_Why is it always this way?_

_click_

_Why is it never different?_

_click_

He hissed through his teeth, “Why can’t I just _lose?_ ”

It’d be so easy. Just stay here, kneeling on the floor, before a wall he would never be able to penetrate through in time and let the nightmare win. Let the Manurans enact the justice they craved. 

Suffer for his sins. Suffer for what he did in the past. Suffer, and pray, that they would release Goku from wherever he was, after Vegeta finally gave in and paid the price for his mistakes. 

He buried his face into his cold, gloved palms. 

_I can’t do it again._

The tears warmed his skin.

_I can’t go through it all over again._

He gasped when a loud voice tore through his mind. 

_YES YOU CAN._

Vegeta dug his fingers into his skin, bruising the flesh. _But I can remember it all, Kakarot._ He hissed a sob through his clenched teeth. _You don’t understand._ His teeth ground together. _I remember everything._

He could see Goku now, just like then with the Spirit Bomb over his head, crying out to him. The moment he realized what he felt for the man was more than admiration. More than respect. 

That Goku yelled at him, right into his face, _You can’t let them win! You know this!_

Vegeta pulled his hands away from his clammy face. _You’ll still be gone._

_NO VEGETA._

He swallowed against the lump in his throat. _Win or lose, you’ll still be gone._

A gentle brush to his cheek caught his attention.

There was no wall when he opened his eyes again. No dark room. No fortress, no putrid smell of his nightmares or the sense of oncoming doom from behind him.

Goku knelt before him, taking up his whole vision. He cupped Vegeta’s cheek fully into his palm, his head tilted to the side, gazing at Vegeta like he was the most important person in the universe to him in this moment. A look Vegeta knew Goku gave to him multiple times in the past. A look he only recognized and acknowledged for what it was, before the day he was taken away from him.

“You can do this, Vegeta. You will.” Goku pressed his fingertips to his face, a full, strong hold of the side of his head. “Because no one controls the fate of the Prince of all Saiyans. _No one._ ” 

Vegeta kept his attention solely on him as his gloved hand—the one with the blood stain—rested over Goku’s. 

The familiar warmth filled up his chest. A warmth he treasured, each and every time this happened. A warmth only this man could give him, in a perilous moment like this.

Hope.

“Kakarot…”

“Get up.” Goku grinned, and the warmth in his chest intensified. “Get up off your ass, break free of this place and _win_.”

A blink, and Goku was gone. The warmth remained though, as it always did. A warmth that pushed Vegeta back to his wobbly feet, fueling the fire and the rage and the hope inside his mind and body. He could feel the monster behind him, hear the _click_ and its ugly smell, and he didn’t care. None of it mattered now. There was a job to do again, and he needed to use the time he had left to do his best. To follow through and break free and prove them wrong.

Vegeta glanced over his shoulder, smirking at the nightmare he hated for so long. “Sorry. No more confessions from me today.” He returned his attention back to the glowing wall made of pure diamonds and twisted a gloved hand into a tight fist. “But I will tell you the truth.” 

He pulled his fist back and punched the wall with all his strength.

“AHH!” He jerked his fist back, shaking it out. “Fuck!” He laughed through the pain, muttering, “Always forget that first one hurts like a bitch.” 

The smell stung his eyes as much as the pain did. 

He drew the other fist back. 

“AGH!” Vegeta jerked that one back too, shaking it out.

A minuscule piece of diamond fluttered to the ground. 

He grit his teeth, drawing both of his fists up. 

Punch after punch after punch, Vegeta talked through the pain. “He is better than me.” Bone cracking. “He is stronger than me!” Torn skin. “He is everything that is good and he needs to be protected _always!_ ” Blood stains on the wall. “And I will fight for him!” Blood pouring down his fists. “I will save him!” Blood pooling at his feet. “And that is all you will get from me, because only _he_ gets my last confession!” More bone cracks. “Not you!” Blood sprayed onto his face. “Not _ANYONE_!” 

The last punch brought him back to his knees, howling in pain. 

He stared at his fists. No more leather surrounding his knuckles. No skin either. Only the yellow pieces of fat, the supple red of connective tissue and tendons, the faint white of bone. 

Vegeta snickered. “It’s going to take a while though.” He fell back into a fighting stance, fists framing his wet face. “So how about I tell you a little story to pass the time?”

Pain barely registered as he punched the wall again, and again, and again. Neither did the sound and the smell of the monster lurking closer and closer to him.

“There once was a boy—”

Then the nightmare stood right behind him. 

“—destined to become a king.”

Its disfigured hands came into his view. 

“And he asks his father—”

His fists kept punching, and _punching_. 

“—how long can a Saiyan live?”

The hands of his nightmare finally engulfed his whole head. 

Vegeta _screamed_. 

Burning flesh. Blood flowing. Ki eaten alive. The warmth disappeared. The room disappeared. 

His world became sheer _agony_.

He stopped screaming when the hands finally released him.

Vegeta collapsed to the ground in a heap of singed, bloodied flesh. 

** 

In a castle out in the middle of an ocean, lost somewhere in a place forgotten by time, a prince of a dead race crawled out of a long, dark corridor. 

_People always get it wrong with us Saiyans, Kakarot. We take forever to die._

Blood trailed behind him in his wake. 

_Even if we’re too injured to heal, every cell in our bodies keeps fighting to live._

Every hallway. Every room. Every stone. Blood stained it all.

_Dying properly can take days. It’s why we liked to die amongst our own kind—they knew not to bury us early._

But the prince fought through his pain and kept going. 

_In my current condition, I’ll get to the top of the tower where the transporter is within a day._

He crawled on the tissue of his finger. The exposed bones of his knees. 

_If I’m really lucky, I’ll get there sooner._

Up thousands of flights of steps. Down long sand-covered, stone-lined floors. 

_I have to do this, Kakarot. It’s the only way._

The prince crawled through it all, because he had to.

_I have to be strong. I have to fight._

It took what felt like forever to reach his destination. 

_I cannot fail you._

But the prince laughed at that, because he knew what a forever really felt like. 

_It’s funny. I should’ve known all of this from the very beginning._

He made it to the room where it all began, with everything in its exact place, just like it was supposed to be.

_The portrait of you, this creature from my nightmares, everything…_

The prince crawled on the last of his fingertips, all the way to the teleporter’s console.

_It was my own bespoke torture chamber, intended for me only._

He slammed his back against the wall, the very wall with the Saiyan numbers carved into stone with the glass shard—the diamond shard he took from the wall, ages ago.

_All those skulls in the water…_

The prince grabbed the shard in his weak, destroyed hand.

_I wondered, how could there be other prisoners in this hell._

He scratched a line against the very last number, turning the 0 to a 1. 

_What a fool I was._

The shard landed on the ground, in the exact place it was meant to be. 

_The answer was so obvious, wasn’t it?_

A roar of pain ripped out of the prince as he used the last of his strength to come to his knees before the console.

_There were never any other prisoners._

He slammed his bloodied palms onto the console’s top, his screams echoing throughout the castle as he came to his worn feet. 

_I’ve just been here a very, very long time._

Every console in the universe was the same. A turn of a knob here, a push of a button there, and the prince knew it was ready when the _wrr_ of the machine started up and the teleporter glowed a soft light blue. 

_All the rooms revert to their original condition. The teleporter will do the same, returning to the same condition when I arrived._

The wheeze in each of his breaths. The blood that continuously poured from his hands. The smell of his own burnt flesh. 

_That means there’s a copy of me still in the teleporter’s hard drive._

He reached for the two blue power cables, dragged them to either side of his head, and attached them to his temples. 

_The me, exactly as I was when I first got here..._

The Prince of all Saiyans smirked, his laughter bubbling out like the blood from his mouth. 

_260 years ago._

His hand lingered on the switch, the blackened skin oozing off bone, like the nightmare of his nightmares. 

_All I need is some energy…_

Blackened, bloodied fingers wrapped around the handle slowly.

_… and all you need for energy…_

A flick of his hand.

_… is something to burn._

It wasn’t a shot through the heart and an agonizing death full of regret. It wasn’t a purposeful destruction of every piece of his own body of a death with a hope that it would make a difference. Vegeta didn’t laugh for either one of those deaths. He didn’t feel like he was beating a game he knew he was going to ultimately win. This was different. This was better. 

Electricity zapped through him, stealing away the rest of his life, until he collapsed to the ground, sand puffing up into the air from his impact. 

The teleporter started up. The room filled up with soft blue light. 

Blood and sand and the putrid smell of decayed flesh. His own flesh.

Vegeta slowly closed his eyes. 

He found Goku there, kneeling before him, smiling a sad, tiny smile.

_How much longer can I keep doing this, Kakarot?_

The darkness felt comforting. Warm. Just like Goku’s hand.

_Burning the old me to make a new one…_

Goku was so, so warm.

_… so I can find you again._

His last, dying breath was usurped by the sound of the teleporter coming to a full stop.

***

And the story began again, as it did before. 

A snap of light, and Vegeta wheezed, clawing at his throat for air.

Fingers dipped into dirty sand, spilling through his crevice of his fingers like hourglasses. 

“If you think because he’s gone that I’m weak…” 

The same beats. The same beginning, rising action, climax, falling action, and end. 

A nightmare from his nightmares. A fortress in the middle of an ocean in the middle of nowhere. A lack of vital ki and a chase that never ended. 

Yellow daylight, yellow moon, yellow-black night sky. A portrait of a man, a Saiyan, that was everything good in this universe. A good and a hope and a man he would fight for, again and again, for years, and years. 

Sand and dirt. Ocean waves and new warm clothes that were an exact replica of his own. Diving into ice cold water. Skulls upon skulls swarming the ocean floor. A shovel turned weapon. 

A message buried in soil. Numbers in a dead language etched into stone. Blue cords attached to the temples of a scorched skull. 

The wall of diamonds, the realization hitting again, as it always did, the crisis, and the fight. The will to live. To win. 

“How long can a Saiyan live?”

Ugly fingers swarming his vision.

All of his screams, echoing through the years.

260 years.

289 years.

“How long can a Saiyan live?”

Burnt flesh. Blood and pain and so much blood. 

A day crawling on literal bone and open tissue, a day that felt like a lifetime unto itself, the pain destroying his sense of reality. 

He laughed every time he made it to the teleporter. Laughed every time he stood before the wall. 

“And the Father says—”

Every punch. Every burning sting of pain. 

327 years.

465 years.

Burnt flesh. Blood on diamonds. Disfigured fingers over his vision, like the disfigured fingers that touched the console’s handle. 

“—the strength of your heart—”

562 years.

“—and the will of your mind—”

614 years.

“—will last you a lifetime!”

And the wall began to crack. 687 years. 710 years. It grew, and grew, a large hole gaining ground and depth through the wall, with every punch, every passing year, every scream of pain he released into the ether. 

Ocean waves. Blood and sand. Ki gone, life gone, pain remained. Deserved pain. Familiar pain.

Vegeta growled, “And the boy never understood!” 

Shovel, stone, ocean waves, skulls upon skulls.

“Until a soul, better than his own—”

Skull in hand, skulls everywhere, blackened flesh and the nightmare of his nightmares. 

“—unearthed his heart and mind—”

Pain and fear and anger. Putrid smell and outstretched oozing hands for himself, for the teleporter’s console. 

“—and showed him what he lost forever ago!”

And the hole in the diamond wall increased in size. Became deeper with each punch. Each broken bone. Each life burnt away to bring upon the next. 

826 years. 968 years. 

Vegeta cackled as the wall crumbled around him, the monster’s fingers covering his vision. 

“You may think that boy is weak!”

Burning, blood, stone, sand, cold water, hot fire, confessions said, sharp diamonds and pain compounding pain. 

He laughed through it all. Laughed right into the monster’s face. The diamond wall’s face. His own self. 

999 years. 

Vegeta reached his fist back with all of his strength. 

“Personally?!”

It made perfect contact, right into the wall—and he grinned at the sight of the wall finally _crumbling_. 

Light. Warm, beautiful light. 

Vegeta whipped around, facing the nightmare, the monster, that hunted him for a thousand years.

He came eye-to-eye with his much younger self. 

“Personally,” Vegeta hissed, “I think he’s a _hell_ of a fighter.” 

The nightmare disintegrated to pieces in the warm light, leaving nothing behind but his old armor, a pink scouter and the worn, dilapidated cloak it lived in for so long.

He pivoted on his heel and exited the castle, right into the warm light.

***

The light snapped away, leaving behind only the warmth it provided. Vegeta cleared his vision with the back of his drying, bloodied knuckles until he could focus on his surroundings again. 

Easier to breathe. Easier to walk around. Not as suffocating nor as acrid in his surroundings, or in the air. 

Ki rushed through his whole body, starting at the core of his being, spreading out to his extremities, down to the toes, up to the top of his head. Like a good, needed weight, anchoring him back to reality, making him whole again.

A blue sky above. Green grass below.

Trees upon trees instead of stone on stone. Dirt instead of sand. No ocean. No fortress. No nightmare.

Vegeta gaped at the sight of where it all began: this lush, beautiful forest in the middle of nowhere, on Earth. Before he agreed to enter hell. Before he endured pain he never imagined possible.

_You have changed, Saiyan._

He snapped his attention to the sky above. Waving branches and thickets of leaves framed his view.

The Manuran continued, _You’ve truly surprised us. Your will and your spirit are unbreakable in ways we never imagined possible._

Vegeta smirked. “Think I’m bad? Kakarot’s worse.”

What he assumed was a laugh filtered through his mind.

A light sparked in his purview. He snapped his attention right to it, and his body moved before his mind could catch up with what it saw. 

Goku’s passed out form slowly rematerialized in the exact spot Vegeta lost it a thousand years ago.

 _He is yours,_ the Manuran said. _Go in peace, and so shall we._

There wasn’t any chance of him expressing thanks or gratitude to them. But he showed his respect by saying nothing in return, only nodding once in acknowledgement. When he received nothing back, the tension in Vegeta’s whole body finally released, causing him to fall to his knees, right beside Goku’s prone body.

Nothing different about him. The same gi from that one day. Same hair. Same everything. They did nothing to him. He remained unscathed. Unhurt. 

Vegeta cradled Goku up into his arms, bringing his face closer to his own.

Steady, warm breath. Warm body. 

He was okay. He was alive.

 _Yours_ , the Manuran said, and Vegeta’s whole soul agreed.

His lips pressed to Goku’s parted, dry own.

The ki inside himself flowed out in that kiss, right into the prone form in his arms. Forcing the serum to process faster and remove its hold. Driving Goku’s body to recover and wake up sooner.

He felt the body in his arms stir, and he pulled away in time to watch the reason he survived slowly wake up. A grunt of pain. A tiny yawn. A fluttering of big black eyes opening, focusing, widening in recognition—and then softening in time with his small, gentle smile. 

Vegeta expected a “what happened.” Maybe a “hey there“ or a laugh or a dumb joke. 

Goku stunned him into silence when he whispered none of what Vegeta ever anticipated him saying. 

“You did it.”

The hand from his visions, his supposed hallucinations—his lifeline through all those years—slowly cupped his cheek. 

Goku smiled like he always did then. Full of confidence. Warmth. _Hope_. 

“You…” Vegeta rested his broken, bloodied hand over Goku’s. “All of it? _The whole time?_ ”

A simple nod, and Vegeta dove back in, crushing those soft lips to his. He pulled away to capture that mouth again, because Goku had to understand, he had to know, _he deserved his last confession_ —

Vegeta broke the kiss, huffing out a soft, “Fuck.” His head shook. “ _Fuck_. Kakarot.” His voice turned wet. “Kakarot, I—“

Lips pressed to his. A gentle, sweet kiss, meant to reassure, not to silence. To share the understanding and the knowledge of what happened then, and the acceptance of what was happening now. 

The hope that drove Vegeta to fight for a thousand years. The future that kept Vegeta grounded to today and this moment. 

This man. This brilliant, beautiful man. 

They pulled away from the kiss as one. Goku’s strong thumb rubbed Vegeta’s cheekbone in small circles.

From this close proximity, he caught the corner of Goku’s lips turned upwards. A sight he treasured. A sight burned to his memory forever.

“It’s okay,” Goku whispered. “Don’t need to say it.”

Vegeta suppressed his tears with a stronger kiss to Goku’s willing, waiting lips. 

When he pulled away, Vegeta gazed up to the cloudless blue sky, cradling Goku’s warm body in his arms, where a whole lifetime awaited the two of them to take for themselves. 


End file.
